


Leaves From The Vine

by Soofdope



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Legend of Korra, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soofdope/pseuds/Soofdope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earth. Fire. Air. Water. Long ago, the four nations were at war. Then everything changed when the Avatar brought peace to the world. Only the United Republic, a safe haven for people of all nations, could maintain this balance. But just when all seemed right, the equalists appeared. A few months passed and Republic City welcomed the new Avatar, a waterbender named Clarke, and although she’s mastered three elements, she still has a lot to learn before she’s ready to deal with this mess. But we all believe Clarke can save the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. BOOK 1 - AIR

**Author's Note:**

> This is a reread and slightly adjusted version of my The 100 Secret Santa gift to willowcabins/mykabering posted on [tumblr](http://the100secretsanta.tumblr.com/post/135894742245/).

She beats them in 3 minutes and 21 seconds.

Bellamy’s the first to go down, because Clarke is just in the mood to put a dent in his ego. The other two put up a good fight, but neither of them are really a match for her anymore, not even when she’s restricted to using firebending.

Still, she nearly slips up a few times. Maybe it’s because of her water tribe heritage, but fire has always seemed like the most unnatural element for her to learn. A year and a half of training has made her very good at it, of course, but Clarke still finds water so much more reliable and multifunctional, and for the entire duration of the fight, her fingers are just itching to use the ice and snow around her. But Clarke knows, because that too has been drilled into her, that she has to persevere and ignore her instincts to focus on the task at hand. She always does.

The White Lotus still puts up a fuss. They always do.

She’s relying too much on her waterbending stances and techniques, that’s what they tell her this time when she steps toward them, all three of her opponents sprawled out on the ground. Clarke doesn’t care what they say, it works for her this way and it’s not like they can reasonably fail her on this test.

They see it her way eventually.

And with that, she’s officially mastered firebending.

 

They tell her she can’t start her airbending training yet. Thelonious Jaha cannot – or doesn’t want to – forsake his duties as a councilmember and primary trainer of the new airbenders to come live at the South Pole compound. Clarke pleas with the White Lotus to just let her go to Republic City and get her airbending training there, but of course they refuse, no matter how reasonable her arguments are.

Still, there are some that Clarke can usually manage to convince over time, as long as she plays it smart and tells them the right things, but she notices soon enough that none of them are willing to budge on this one.

After almost a week of this, she gets frustrated enough to start forming an escape plan. If they won’t send her to Republic City, she’ll just have to get there herself. The nearest harbor is two days away and from there it’s just a matter of choosing the right ship to stow away on. If she shows up on Air Temple Island, there’s no way she won’t be able to find an airbender willing to teach her, even if it’s just Wells getting her started on the basics.

She confides in Bellamy, whose immediately response is that he’ll escape with her. He knows Republic City, even has family there, but Clarke immediately refuses his offer. She won’t let him throw away the career he worked so hard for.

Two days later, she is given the approval to go. She doesn’t know if her quiet insistence worked after all, or if Bellamy pulled some strings, but her ship departs the next evening and that’s really all that matters.

 

Thelonious has eleven pupils, excluding his son. Ever since the spirit portals were opened, about eight months ago, new airbenders have begun to appear all over the world. Clarke, as always, was not supposed to know about this side-effect, but the White Lotus should really know better by now than to think they can keep secrets from her, not when she’s spent nine years of her life in the compound on the South Pole, discovering every single one of its hiding places. Still, she was expecting there to be more airbenders. Eleven is not exactly an impressive number.

Wells is quick to enlighten her about that. Turns out his father’s recruiting methods are somewhat… lacking. Wells’ impression of him is surprisingly accurate, right down to the obsessed glint in his eyes as he babbles on about purpose and duty, and his destiny to lead the air nation into a new era of prosperity.

Somehow, though, Thelonious still managed to convince a few of them to travel back with him to Air Temple Island.

One of them is a boy called Finn. He’s cocky and not nearly as cool as he thinks he is, but something attracts Clarke to him nonetheless. He has a natural sense of freedom that she has never been allowed, and it’s as if she can almost grasp it too, just by being near him. Nonetheless, she won’t forget her duty. She needs to master all four elements if she’s ever to be taken seriously as the avatar, and doing whatever the hell she wants is just not an option for her.

Monty seems to understand this better. He’s about her age as well, a bit younger maybe. He’s quiet and attentive, and he has a kind smile. It’s clear he loves airbending, but Clarke soon discovers that his true passion is tinkering with all sorts of gadgets and machines. Thelonious doesn’t seem to approve, keeps talking about how they have a destiny and there is no time for these kinds of material distractions. Monty is nothing if not resourceful, though, and what Thelonious doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

 

It’s three days into her stay on Air Temple Island when Finn shows up at her room late in the evening.

“We’re going out,” he says. It takes some convincing, but, really, there was no way she wasn’t going to agree to his offer. She _has_ been aching to see more of Republic City, after all. The view from Air Temple Island is nice, but it’s nothing like actually exploring the city herself.

She’s nothing but wide eyes and huge smiles as she waterbends them to the mainland and onto the bustling streets of Republic City. Finn, Monty and Wells have obviously done this before, because they expertly guide her to a small bar in the busy city center, pausing every now and then so that Clarke can take in the magnificent sights of the city and ask them about certain landmarks.

The bar is packed, but Finn and Monty walk straight over to a table near the back and wave her over. There are four people already seated; the boy next to Monty introduces himself as Jasper, and the one closest to Finn is called Raven.

“So, you’re the avatar?” asks the dark-haired girl seated next to Raven. Clarke glares at Finn, because he’s obviously the one who told, but his only apology is a shrug and a grin.

“He does that,” Raven says with mock annoyance, “Don’t trust him with your secrets.”

“I am plenty trustworthy,” Finn objects dramatically.

“So if you’re the avatar,” the dark-haired girl speaks up again, “then you know my brother, right? Bellamy?”

Clarke blinks. “Octavia?”

Once the initial shock of finding each other here wears off, Clarke bonds with Octavia over their mutual amusement in making fun of Bellamy. Clarke learns that she’s in a pro-bending team called the Yue Bay Badgerfrogs with Jasper and the other girl at the table, Monroe, and with the help of a few glasses and beer coasters for demonstrative purposes, they manage to teach her the basics of the game.

The rest of the night passes in a blur.

Clarke finds out that Jasper’s water tribe, like her, but he’s lived in Republic City all his life. He’s not good at hiding his crush on Octavia, but she spends most of the evening making not-so-subtle come-ons to Raven, who only pretends to be exasperated by the relentless flirting. They’re a fun and good-natured bunch, and Clarke is happy to have been included.

Light is starting to filter in from just beyond the edges of the horizon by the time they make their way back to the island.

She nods off during meditation that morning.

 

Airbending training is harder than she’d expected, but it’s also exhilarating. Growing up in the Northern Water Tribe, spirituality was always a normal part of everyday life, and with a few trips to the spirit world under her belt, Clarke thought airbending would come naturally to her, but she’s beginning to learn that there’s much more to it than that.

Still, the early waking hours and endless lectures from Thelonious are all worth it when she finally manages to produce and ride an air scooter – for about half a minute, at least.

It’s almost better than the fact that their trips to the mainland have become a weekly thing. It was an immense comfort having Bellamy to talk to at the South Pole compound, but this is the first time she really feels like she’s almost a normal person. She has a whole group of friends now, to go out with and confide in, and it feels so overwhelmingly free that she can barely comprehend it all.

It’s late in the evening on Clarke’s third night out when they stumble upon a protest of sorts. They’re on their way from the bar they usually frequent to some kind of street festival, but the large crowd gathered in front of a woman on a makeshift podium blocks their way. She’s shouting into a megaphone and it’s obvious the crowd is eating up her every word.

“Fucking equalists,” says Raven, and Finn shoots her a look. “I’m sorry, but come on,” Raven adds non-apologetically.

“Equalists?” Clarke asks, but Raven says she’ll explain later, when they get out of there.

“Maybe we can get around them?” Monroe suggests.

“Sure,” Finn replies, “if we can get over there, we can take that bridge across the river.” He points toward a street a little ways further on the right.

“Yeah, that’s not an option,” Jasper replies. “Let’s just backtrack. I’m sure we’ll find–”

He’s cut off by a burst of commotion coming from up ahead. There’s loud, angry shouting, different from the general chants of the crowd, and suddenly the crowd disperses a little and Clarke sees light up ahead. A lot of people are starting to look panicked, and even the speaker on the platform stops to look at the commotion.

Clarke makes an impulse decision. Her airbending’s not that good yet, but she knows how to lift off. She lands awkwardly near the source of the light, among gasps and shouts. There is a firebender glaring angrily at a man who has his fists raised.

“What did you say to me?” the firebender says menacingly, intensifying the flame he’s producing. Three other people stand behind him and laugh.

“I said shut your mouth and leave, you bender trash,” the man spits.

The firebender lashes out, but the man ducks and uses strange movements on the bender’s arm, which falls limply by his side.

“Hey, hey!” Clarke shouts, “Stop it!” The bender creates another fire dagger with his functioning arm, but she airbends the two of them away from each other. The bender is caught by his friends, but the other man falls down.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he yells, “ _He_ attacked _me_!” A few people come to help the man up while many of the others who stay back grow brave enough to voice their agreement with the non-bender.

“Okay,” Clarke replies, “I’m sorry. But please just calm down.”

“ _Calm down_?” the man repeats, followed by a string of expletives and variants on “how dare you”. Other people start yelling at her too, mainly that she should go back to her island and stay out of their business. Meanwhile, the firebender has recovered, and his friends seem just as eager for a fight, so Clarke earthbends their feet in the ground and puts shackles on their wrists. She wants to call for her friends so they can get these people out of there before the situation escalates even further, but then a ripple seems to go through the crowd as people realize _she’s the avatar_ , and the non-benders get increasingly loud and more disruptive.

While Clarke is distracted by shouts of “get out” and “we don’t need you here,” one of the troublemakers earthbends herself and then the others free from their restraints, and they run, the crowd parting in fear. Then they gang up on Clarke, angry at her for allowing those benders to escape. She starts to argue, but that’s when Finn and Monty show up and get her out of there.

 

The news reaches every radio station and newspaper in the city, and the White Lotus are forced to have her hold a press conference. Marcus is there, her former earthbending instructor. Clarke knew he lived in Republic City, but not that he was still involved with the White Lotus. He’s the one who hands her the speech she’s supposed to deliver, and gives her a pat on the shoulder as if that’s supposed to steady her nerves. She reads it over, sighs and walks up to the stage when President Wallace announces her.

There are mixed reactions to her appearance in the vast crowd that has gathered before her. She’s not surprised. She was already aware that there was a general sense of displeasure around the spirit vines taking over the city – another thing the White Lotus hadn’t been able to keep hidden from her – and now there appears to be a big group of non-benders who despise bending and all those who use it, and who see the avatar as their biggest enemy, the ultimate symbol of their oppression.

Clarke stands a bit taller and reminds herself of her meditation lessons. Then she steps closer to the microphone and delivers the pre-prepared speech, the essential message of which is that she has indeed come to Republic City in her role as the avatar, but that she is still completing her training to master all four elements. As such, she’s not ready to help anyone yet and will stay out of political matters until that time comes.

The crowd bursts with noise as soon as she finishes. Everyone seems to be shouting questions all at once and she can’t make out a single thing until one of the White Lotus member starts selecting journalists at random to ask their questions. She feels wholly incompetent as she does her best to provide them with satisfactory answers, but the truth is that she has too many questions of her own, and now more than ever, she feels like she has no clue whatsoever what she’s doing.

She’s ushered off-stage as soon as the White Lotus decides she’s had enough.

 

Octavia, Jasper and Monroe play their first pro-bending match of the season a few days later, which offers a welcome distraction. It’s a beautiful and exciting sport, and Clarke still doesn’t know much about the rules, but she understands enough to gather that the Badgerfrogs wins quite spectacularly.

They go to their usual bar to celebrate.

“I was really on fire tonight,” Octavia proclaims just before downing a shot. Nearly everyone groans.

“I think what shocks me most is that you’ve never even made that pun before,” Raven replies in astonishment and takes a sip of her beer.

“Oh, come on, you thought I was hot, admit it.”

Raven scoffs. “Maybe when you were literally making fire.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed you like it when I do that,” Octavia says shamelessly, and Raven elbows her in the ribs, taking another sip from her beer to hide the blush on her cheeks.

 

Clarke really doesn’t know how it’s possible that Thelonious doesn’t suspect anything when they show up dead tired for morning meditation every Saturday. Clarke can barely keep her eyes open, Wells has a glazed look in his eyes, Finn has bags from here to Ba Sing Se and Monty is just plain asleep.

The arrival of a new airbender in their midst is a pleasant wake-up call though, especially since she’s about their age. Her name is Maya. She’s from Republic City and she seems very kind, if a little shy.

 

Clarke’s waiting in line for a turn on the spinning gates later that day when Finn turns around and produces two folded pieces of paper from within his robes that he hands to her.

“I was thinking we should go,” he whispers, after she’s unfolded them and glanced at the now familiar image of a masked woman.

“What?” she replies, lifting her gaze to frown up at him. “Why? And where did you even get these?”

“They were handing them out in the park yesterday.”

“That’s why you left early? To go to one of the equalist protests?”

Finn shrugs, tries to keep that careless smile on his face. “I _was_ a non-bender for most of my life, you know.” He fiddles with the flyers in his hands. “I guess I just wanted to see what they’re all about. And Clarke, they do have a point. I mean, I don’t agree with some of their methods, but they’re not wrong. And I figured,” he lifts the pieces of paper, “This rally seems important, so if we go, at least we’ll know what they’re up to. And if what they’re up to sucks, we can go talk to them or something. Convince them to work together, without all the violence.”

Clarke thinks it over.

“Sure,” she says, but she doesn’t feel sure at all.

 

The rally is a week away, which gives her the opportunity to take Raven, Octavia and Jasper aside during their usual Friday night get-together and ask for their help. Clarke knows Finn wouldn’t approve, so he doesn’t have to know. It’s just a safety precaution, after all.

They all agree, and so when she and Finn leave on the evening of the rally, Clarke knows her friends will be trailing behind them and waiting outside the building for them to reappear when it’s over.

They’ve figured out where to go from the back of the flyers that Finn managed to procure. It’s some kind of big industrial building across the river. As they make their way toward the entrance, Clarke pulls her scarf up higher and stays behind Finn so as not to be recognized.

“Invitations?” asks the big, imposing man at the door. Clarke and Finn share an anxious glance before Finn hesitantly pulls out the flyers.

The man smiles and motions for them to enter. They both heave sighs of relief as soon as they’re through the door.

Inside awaits a crowd of at least a thousand people. They walk until they reach the back of the enormous group and Clarke tries to avoid eye contact. She knows that they have nothing to fear as long as they don’t reveal themselves, but she’s still got her guard up as they wait for something to happen. It takes another fifteen minutes, maybe, for a woman to appear on stage. She’s got blond hair and a striking face, and Clarke is pretty sure it’s the same person they saw on stage at the protest. The room has filled up entirely by now, and the crowd greets the woman with boisterous applause. She lifts a hand to quiet the room and begins to speak, starting by thanking everyone for showing up in support of their cause.

“Most of you know me by now,” she continues, and another round of applause breaks out, “but I am just one of many voices of the real hero of this movement, the one who will guide us all into a new world of equality and justice.” She pauses for effect. “I know you’ve all been waiting a long time to finally meet her. And today is that day. Please welcome, your Heda!”

The crowd goes wild and Clarke applauds along so as not to arouse suspicion. A young woman appears on stage, most of her face obscured by a black mask that makes it look like she has big oil stains around her eyes. She’s small and lean, but she stands tall as she takes in the crowd and waits for silence to return.

“We are all here today for three reasons,” she says into the microphone, her voice booming with confidence. “We are here because we’ve been bullied and oppressed all our lives, for something out of our control. I grew up in the earth kingdom, where my non-bending parents couldn’t find work because every employer preferred to hire benders. I was still a child when we moved to Republic City, with nothing to keep us going but the hope that things would get better. They didn’t. My parents did find work, but the gangs of benders that were operating in our neighborhood extorted them, taking most of their meagre pay just to be left alone for another month. They died trying to keep me alive, and the government, the benders at the police we’re supposed to rely on? They did nothing.”

She pauses, puts her gloved hands behind her back.

“I had already lost so much, when, a year ago, benders took away the last person who mattered to me, killed her because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I decided something had to be done, and found sympathetic voices in all of you gathered here today.”

She calms the crowd with a single movement when they start to applaud again.

“We are all here today,” she continues, “because no matter how many times President Wallace promises to make things better, nothing has improved for us. We have had to endure hardship at the hands of benders, and none of the people in power are going to do anything about it. And now the avatar is here.”

A knot forms in Clarke’s stomach. She sees Finn turn toward her from the corner of her eyes, but she doesn’t avert her gaze from the woman on stage.

“The avatar, who is supposed to bring balance to the world,” Heda continues mockingly. “We all know how she has handled that so far. First she opens the spirit portals and destroys our homes with spirit vines, and now that she has finally dared to show her face in Republic City, she tells us she does not care about our struggles, because she is too busy learning another element of bending.”

Clarke struggles to keep her cool.

“Make no mistake,” Heda continues, “the avatar is not our avatar. She’s theirs. She is a symbol for a corrupt government that is made solely by and for benders, and which is based on giving some people power over others while forcing the rest of us to lie in the dirt like common boar dogs.”

Heda pauses, looking out over the crowd before continuing.

“So yes, we are here because we have been hurt. But most of all, we are here because we have a vision for the future. Like many of you, I used to think that I was weak and that they were strong. That I could do nothing to stop their oppression. But I was wrong. I realized that benders were given more advantages in life, unfair ones, but that I could be just as strong as them. We all can be. Because we are only truly weak for believing that we are.”

The crowd erupts with applause and chants of “Heda!” again. The woman lifts her head higher and waits for the majority of the noise to die down.

“We live in a rotten system. But we have the power to set it right. And tonight is the first step toward that.”

As soon as she’s spoken those last words, three more equalists appear on stage, each leading a tied-up person with a hood over their head toward the center of the stage. They are forced onto their knees before the hoods are removed and many in the audience gasp.

“These are some of Republic City’s most notorious criminals,” Heda continues, “whom the police have been claiming to be after for years now. It took our people three days to track them down and capture them. Which either means that these benders at the police force are completely incompetent, or that they just do not care about the safety and well-being of the city’s non-bender population. Wherever the truth lies, it is clear that the system does not adequately protect us and instead maintains the systemic oppression of non-benders. And that is why the government must fall – why _we_ must make it fall. Because we are not weak, we are not helpless, and we will not endure their oppression any longer!”

Another round of applause echoes through the hall, louder still than any of the previous ones. Clarke and Finn share a worried look.

“We are bringing these lowlifes to justice,” Heda interrupts the crowd’s jubilations, pointing to the three people on their knees behind her, “and soon, we will do the same for those criminals operating in the name of the police force, the justice department, and the United Republic government!”

She has to speak very loudly now, despite her microphone, to be understood above the roaring of the crowd.

“But we cannot do this alone. To achieve what they, in their arrogance, would call impossible, we need your help. We can train you, teach you how to fight benders and win, how to temporarily disable the only thing they know how to rely on: their bending. And then, together, we _will_ win this fight!”

She unclasps her cape and lets it drop to the floor.

“Allow me to demonstrate,” she says. “I will give these criminals a final chance to earn their freedom. They will fight me, and if they win, they will be free to walk out of here. If they do not… we get to keep them.”

With that, she steps away from the microphone, and the first of the captured criminals is released. He gets up hesitantly at first, but then stomps his foot to shoot up a pillar of the stone floor and send it flying in Heda’s direction. She evades it with ease and lets it crash into the back wall as she steps closer to the earthbender. He attempts to hurl another boulder at her, but she’s too fast for him and gets within touching distance. The bender resorts to physical combat, but Heda uses the same series of short and sharp movements that Clarke had seen the man at the protest use, and the bender’s arms fall limply beside his body. He attempts a kick, but Heda blocks it and uses the same movements on his leg, sending the man toppling to the floor. She walks away and gets one of her associates to drag the earthbender off-stage as another releases the second of the captured people.

The woman holds her head high as she stands up slowly and deliberately, then opens her mouth and breathes fire at Heda. With an incredible speed and maneuverability, Heda ducks out of the way and jumps back up. The firebender lasts longer than the earthbender did, but she still ends up on the floor, unable to move, in the span of a minute. The crowd is very vocal in its approval.

Finn lets Clarke know that the last bender on stage is the leader of a big crime ring that works around the Dragon Flats borough. The crowd will be anxious to see him go down and he suggests high-tailing it out of there in case things get out of hand. Clarke points out, however, that it would be suspicious for them to leave now, and Finn nervously agrees to stay put.

The crime boss does not seem deterred by the defeat of his associates. He chuckles menacingly and rips a metal pipe off the ceiling, which he catches and molds into boxing gloves, before he lets a column fall from the ceiling right where Heda’s standing. She avoids it, to no-one’s surprise, unflinching as it crashes right next to her. She waits.

The man rips another large chunk of piping from the wall, bends it into a horseshoe shape and sends it flying to his opponent in order to trap her in it and restrict her movement. But Heda takes a running start and slides under the flying piece of piping, straight toward her opponent. He catches on a fraction of a second too late, attempting to step out of the way just as she goes for his legs. She uses the same debilitating technique she demonstrated on the others and he loses his balance, falling sideways. Enraged, he shoots off one of his metal gloves, which hits Heda in the shoulder. She recoils, but is quick enough to narrowly evade the other one before she uses her uninjured arm to incapacitate the bender.

Panting, Heda steps to the center of the stage, where she takes in another round of thunderous applause. The last of the captured benders is dragged away screaming. Heda stays on stage for half a minute or so, then bows and leaves without another word.

Clarke knows they talked about escaping the crowd to go find this Heda if she seemed too keen on violence, but her head is swimming with all this new information and she can’t even seem to get herself to move until Finn quite literally pulls her away and out of the building.

They meet up with Octavia, Raven and Jasper. Finn is disgruntled that Clarke arranged for backup, but she can’t get herself to care. She tells the others about what happened inside.

“Fuck,” is all Octavia can say when she finishes.

“Fuck,” Raven agrees.

“Maybe we should get the others,” suggests Jasper, “to talk it over together.”

They pick up Monroe and go to Air Temple Island together to wake up Monty and Wells. They make their way as quietly as possible to a secluded area, making sure to avoid the White Lotus guards posted around the island.

Finn tells the story of what happened at the rally again. Clarke weighs in with her own remarks and additions every now and then, but she can’t seem to help but focus on the things Heda said about her.

“Hey, it’ll be okay,” Monty tries to encourage her. “Not everyone thinks that way about you. We all know that you want to help the people of Republic City and so do plenty of other people.” The others all voice their agreement.

“They can’t just expect you to abandon your airbending training to go be their hero before you’re ready,” Finn adds.

“Not when you can’t even stick the landing with your glider yet,” says Monty in an attempt to lighten the mood. Clarke forces a smile, but all she can think is that she _should_ be ready.

“And besides,” Octavia offers, “that thing with the spirit vines is not all bad. And you probably had your reasons anyway.” Clarke nods again, but all she can think of is her dad, imprisoned because he defied the White Lotus to ask her for help with the Harmonic Convergence, and Clarke’s not ready to talk to them about that yet.

“Hey,” Wells adds, “you gave the world new airbenders. You have no idea how much that means to me and my dad.”

“Thanks, everyone,” Clarke says, “I just wish the rest of the city could see it that way.”


	2. BOOK 2 - EQUALITY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has already commented and/or left kudos. It really means a lot, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter too.

The president shows up on Air Temple Island. He’s all honeyed smiles and kind eyes when he asks Thelonious if he could have a word with Clarke. Thelonious, to Clarke’s relief, insists that she finish the balancing exercise they’re working on that morning. He’s clearly hoping for the president to leave, but the old man says he doesn’t mind waiting. Politeness compels Thelonious to invite him over for lunch, though he does it with pursed lips and a barely suppressed scowl. The president pretends not to notice and gracefully accepts the offer, that same innocent smile on his lips while his eyes betray his cunning.

He’s all pleasantries and charm at the table. Clearly he’s hoping to lighten the mood and warm them all up to him, but his small talk cannot mask the fact that they all know he’s there for a reason. Finally, he compliments them one last time on the excellent meal and asks Clarke directly if he might have a word with her in private.

There’s little she can think of that she’d less like to do in that instant, but she’s still the avatar and he’s the president of one of the world’s five nations, so she hides her reluctance and nods.

It takes a good five minutes for her to storm out of the room Thelonious begrudgingly directed them to. The president walks after her, fast enough to keep up, but somehow effortlessly enough to look casual. “Please reconsider, Clarke,” he says, without a hint of urgency or desperation. He sounds almost like he’s doing Clarke a favor and it only makes her walk away from him faster.

“I have to get back to training,” she tells him without looking back, and finally he leaves her alone.

Clarke does return to training, but she finds it impossible to focus on breathing techniques when she’s got all that rage to bottle up.

How dare he? Asking her to be his voice, delivering speeches for him, showing the world that she’s on his side. “To quell the unrest,” he claimed. Bullshit. He just wants the avatar to be his little puppet. Say exactly what he wants her to say, when he wants her to say it. Well, she’s not doing it. She owes him nothing, and she told him as much, in as friendly a way as she could muster, stressing that the reason for her stay in Republic City was not a political one, and that she can’t get involved in matters of this gravity while she’s still in the process of learning to master all four elements.

The more President Wallace tried to push, the more annoyed Clarke got with him and his sleek demeanor.

 

She decides that Finn was right. She does need to talk to this Heda.

Clarke’s only been in the city for a few weeks now, and she’s never not been a bender, so she can’t say she really understands the equalists’ situation. But she is willing to believe that their oppression is real, and Finn and Monty, who have only been benders for a little while now, have been a great help in sharing their experiences. Clarke just doesn’t necessarily agree with the equalists’ methods. She understands that change can’t always come from peaceful protesting, but teaching everyone to fight like that? Taking it upon themselves to capture criminals and doing spirits know what with them? Clarke just thinks – hopes – that if she can talk to their leader, that maybe they can find another way. Because all she can see this leading to is civil war, and she’d like to not go down in history as the avatar who stood by while that happened, unfinished training be damned.

She soon finds out that it’s impossible to locate this Heda. No matter how many equalists she follows, none of them ever seem to meet with their leader, and apart from knowing what the lower half of her face looks like, Clarke has absolutely no clues to go on. It’s as if she just sprung into existence for the rally and disappeared straight after.

Who she does track down, however, is the woman who was speaking at the first protest Clarke stumbled upon. Clarke follows her for an entire day while Monty and Finn cover for her on Air Temple Island, pretending she’s in bed with pentapox. She overhears someone call her Anya, and finds out she leads a pretty normal life outside of her equalist activities.

She almost corners her on her way home, but decides to try the polite approach instead. So she waits, long enough for Anya to enter her apartment building and about ten minutes more after that, so that she won’t think she was followed. Then Clarke enters the building and takes the stairs up to the second floor, where she saw the lights go on not long after Anya went in.

Clarke knocks and it doesn’t take long for the woman to open the door. When she looks at her, Clarke thinks she sees something like panic on her face, but after a brief moment it’s gone and all she can read from the woman’s face is disinterest, or maybe annoyance.

“Are you lost?” she asks, and Clarke realizes that it might have been a good idea to contemplate on what exactly to say after getting to this point.

“I’m Clarke, the, eh... avatar.”

Anya’s expression remains impossible to read.

“Look, I know you’re an equalist and I want to talk to Heda.”

Anya looks her up and down. “No.” She slams the door shut.

It’s a good thing Clarke has excellent reflexes, because this takes her entirely by surprise, and she barely manages to grab the door handle and push before Anya has a chance to lock the door and shut her out completely.

As soon as she enters, she’s slammed into a wall, a fist tight around her neck.

“Which part of ‘no’ do you not understand, Avatar?” Anya says, and rather than bend her way out of this, Clarke tries the friendly approach again. Because that’s been working out well for her so far.

She lifts her arms in surrender.

“I’m sorry, okay,” she tries, “I just need to talk to your leader. I want to help you.”

Anya scoffs. “We don’t need your help. You made it very clear when you addressed the city that you don’t care about us.” She smiles, a small and cruel thing. “Tell me, if you want to see Heda so much, why should I not tie you up and bring you to her as my prisoner?”

“I didn't even write that speech,” Clarke rasps. It’s starting to get harder to breathe, so she brings her hands down to Anya’s wrist, to try and get her to ease off the pressure a bit. “The White Lotus told me to say that. I want to help, that’s what I’m here for. And maybe they’ll listen to me.”

Anya seems to finally consider this, her grip around Clarke’s neck loosening slightly. But just as suddenly, and without warning, her face hardens and before Clarke has time to react, Anya has performed those strange movements that Clarke is starting to grow all too familiar with, and she can barely lift her arms, let alone try any sort of bending. It’s entirely terrifying and Clarke panics, kicking Anya away and breathing fire in her general direction. Then she runs for it.

 

Anya doesn’t chase her, but it takes her at least ten minutes to get full sensation back in her arms, and another fifteen to be able to bend again, and she’s terrified.

She doesn’t tell any of the others. About any of it.

 

Two days later, she issues a public statement. It’s much less grand than the first one and that’s entirely how she wants it. For one, the president is not there to introduce her (he’s probably still got his feathers ruffled anyway), but most importantly, this time she gets to decide what she says, no-one else.

She’s not interested in delivering some kind of beautiful, mind-blowing speech, so she cuts right to the chase and tells the small crowd of journalists and other onlookers that she was wrong to prioritize her training over the needs of the people, and that she will now begin to rectify that mistake by requesting a meeting with the leader of the equalist movement.

“We can fight each other if you want,” she concludes, “but I would much rather talk and see what we can do for each other, to solve all this without violence. I’ll be waiting for you, alone, at sundown on Monday, in front of the building I saw you speak at three weeks ago. I hope you’ll meet me there. Thank you.”

 

Her friends offer her various arguments as to why this is a terrible idea.

“At least let us come with you,” Octavia suggests, and the others all nod their agreement.

“I can’t,” Clarke replies, “I told her I’d be alone. She’ll never trust me if I don’t stay true to my word.”

“And what if she doesn’t come alone, and she tries to kill you?” asks Jasper.

Clarke sighs. “It’s a risk I have to take.” She looks around the table. None of them seem at all convinced.

“Hey. Promise me that you won’t follow me there. Please. I have to do this alone.”

They reluctantly mumble their agreement.

 

Clarke watches the sun disappear below the horizon and wraps her arms around herself. She scans her surroundings, but sees nothing but buildings. She’s never come to this neighborhood before apart from the night of the rally, but it seems almost unnaturally quiet. She knows that there is no guarantee that Heda won’t lure her into a trap, but she has to hope that she’ll make the right decision.

Clarke hears a thud behind her, and before she has a chance to whirl around, she feels the immobilizing burn of electricity.

She wakes up in darkness. There is something over her head and her muscles are aching, so she assumes she’s been in this position for a few hours. She tries to move but her hands are tied behind her back and her feet are bound together. Great.

It’s quiet for a little while, but then a door opens and she hears approaching footsteps. She’s grabbed under the armpits by two people, who wordlessly drag her away despite her protests. She tries to kick and break her bounds, but it doesn’t seem to faze them much.

Eventually they stop, and she’s lowered into a chair. They tie her to it before removing the hood.

Clarke blinks at the sudden brightness of the world around her.

There is a figure standing before her. Heda, looking as royal and confident as ever, the black mask firmly in place to protect her identity and the same red cape slung over her shoulders. She’s toying with a knife, and Clarke has to admit that she looks intimidating despite her small stature.

It’s quiet and Clarke wants to say a great many things, but none of them are particularly nice, so she doesn’t say anything at all. Instead, she gives her restraints a tug, and when all this accomplishes is pain in her wrists, she looks around the room.

It’s bare, save for Heda herself and two bulky, masked guards by the door. It’ll be a tough one to escape if things go awry.

“You have some nerve, Avatar,” Heda begins after another moment of silence, “asking me to meet you for peace talks mere days after invading one of my people’s home and burning her.”

“I only attacked after she did,” Clarke replies on instinct, and she knows immediately that it was the wrong thing to say.

“Attack you?” Heda scoffs, “All she did was take away your unfair advantage. After you broke into her house.”

Clarke sighs. “I just wanted to talk to you. I thought she’d know where I could find you.”

“And you thought threatening her would be the way to get that information.”

Clarke doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Is she okay?” She asks eventually.

“You said you were coming alone,” Heda says instead of replying. “I suppose I should have known you would have other tricks up your sleeve.”

Heda throws a small, round object in Clarke’s lap. She’s not a big technology buff, but it’s definitely some kind of electronic device.

“We disabled it, so whoever is trying to track you has no way of knowing where you are.”

Clarke bites her teeth. _Raven_.

“Well, you did knock me unconscious and kidnap me,” is all she says in reply.

Maybe she’s hallucinating, but she thinks she sees a hint of a smile on Heda’s lips.

“Safety precaution.”

“So what’s the deal?” Clarke asks. “You want to kill me? Torture me for some kind of information you think I have?”

“Your death does not interest me, Avatar,” Heda says in that soft but stern voice of hers. “You said you wanted to talk to me. So talk.”

So Clarke tells her she doesn’t have to be the Avatar only for benders, that she is more than willing to help, provided that Heda lets her. Her only condition is that she wants them to try this peacefully.

Heda scoffs. “You think we haven’t tried to do this peacefully? For years – for decades – we have tried. And all we got for our efforts are scars and burn marks, and dead friends and relatives.”

“Creating a war is not going to help anyone,” Clarke says stubbornly.

Heda shakes her head. “You show your ignorance, Avatar. What you mean is that it will not help your people.”

“And what about your people then?” Clarke argues. “The ones you’re training to become soldiers? How many of them are going to have to die for this?”

“As many as it takes,” Heda says without a moment’s hesitation. “We all know that victory stands on the back of sacrifice, and it is a price we are willing to pay for equality, if that is what it takes.”

“And you know that? You know that with enough certainty to be willing to bet their lives on that? On the assumption that they’re all just as willing to die for this cause as you are?”

“That’s what being a leader means, Avatar. Maybe one day you’ll understand that.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Clarke says stubbornly, “maybe I am stupid and naive. Because to me, being a leader means keeping your people alive. Not sending them off to die.”

Heda sighs, looks down at the blade in her hand.

“This is pointless. You say you want to talk, that you want to help, but all you’ve offered me so far is conditions and restrictions.”

“Well then tell me what you want,” Clarke says with exasperation.

“What we want is for the current government to be disbanded,” Heda says. “We want a new one to be formed through fair elections, with proportional non-bender representation. We want equal opportunity in the workforce, starting with the police. And we want laws passed to ensure that no further discrimination and oppression is lawful in the United Republic. That would make a good start. Are you willing to help us get that, Avatar, or are you going to continue telling me what we can’t and shouldn’t do?”

Clarke considers her options. “I can talk to the president. Maybe arrange to speak in front of parliament. Urge them to show their good will by passing some kind of anti-discrimination law, and then we can–”

“If that is all you plan to do,” Heda interrupts her, “then you might as well not try to help at all.”

She fixes her gaze on one of the guards and nods at him. “I am sorry, Clarke,” she says without any emotion.

Clarke doesn’t like where this is going, so she burns through the ropes binding her hands and reaches down to untie her legs, but the guard gets to her too soon and the last thing she feels is the sting of electricity again.

 

Her head is pounding when she wakes up, slumped against a wall of the rally building. She punches the ground, leaving a large crack.

She should probably get back to the island, but there is one thing that she wants to do first. So she walks to Raven’s apartment and rings the doorbell incessantly until Raven opens up.

“Dude, it’s like four in the mo– Hey!” the obvious relief that floods Raven’s face as soon as she recognizes her would usually be touching, but Clarke is not in the mood to appreciate the fact that she has people who genuinely care and worry about her now. She steps past her and into the apartment.

“Are you okay?” Raven asks, looking back outside to check for suspicious figures. When she closes the door and turns back around, Clarke is holding the tracker up for her to see.

The fact that she seems to recognize it instantly confirms Clarke’s suspicion.

“Whoa, Clarke, what are you doing?” Raven says with panic, stepping closer to examine the tracker. “Why would you bring that here? What if they show up at my door?”

“What?” Clarke says with utter confusion. “No, they disabled it.”

Now Raven shares the look of confusion. “I feel like I’m missing something here. Why bring this to me?”

“Because I told you not to follow me and your response to that is to bug me!”

Raven’s expression shifts from confused to offended. “You think I planted this on you?”

Clarke just raises her eyebrows.

“Clarke,” Raven begins, “As much as I wish I’d have thought of that, it wasn’t me.”

Clarke eyes her suspiciously.

“I swear, Clarke,” Raven says earnestly, and Clarke’s scowl finally softens. She’s inclined to believe Raven, but she doesn’t get it. Who else could–

Oh.

 

“Monty!” she shouts, her voice booming across the boys’ dormitory. He jumps, dropping the device he’s tinkering with. Clarke is only moderately sorry.

Finn is sitting at the table with Monty, barely awake yet, but when he sees Clarke, he pats him on the back sympathetically and makes for the exit.

“Glad you’re okay, Clarke. I’ll hear about it later.”

She watches him close the door before turning back to Monty, who’s looking extremely guilty.

“You bugged me?” she accuses.

“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “You said not to follow you and this was the next best thing we could think of. It was just a safety precaution, in case they did something to you.”

“We?”

Monty’s eyes widen, but he pretends not to hear. “At least now we know where the equalists are?” he offers doubtfully.

“No, we don’t,” Clarke replies, “They disabled the tracker.”

“No, they didn’t,” says Monty. “I mean, yes they did, but only one of them.”

Clarke’s glare falters. “You... You bugged me twice?”

Monty doesn’t seem to know if he’s allowed to smile. “I sewed one of them into your clothes.”

“So...” Clarke begins, “You know where they took me?”

Now Monty does smile. It’s obvious he knows Clarke isn’t mad anymore. He waves her over and shows her a time-lapse of the movement of a red dot on a small, electronic screen.

“You stopped here for almost five hours. I checked, and it’s a building across the river, not far north of where you went to meet Heda. I figured I’d give you until morning meditation to get back before I contacted the police.”

Clarke’s resolve wavers. “Thanks,” she tells him. “Just... keep this to yourself for the time being?”

Monty nods.

 

The championship match of the pro-bending season is scheduled to take place two weeks after Clarke’s failed attempt at negotiations with Heda. The Badgerfrogs are playing the Yu Dao Dogbats, the team that won the tournament two years ago and is notorious for its aggressive and creative fighting style.

A week before the match, the equalists issue a message to the city. They are not to allow this match to take place, or the consequences will be dire.

The president, of course, responds by delivering an impassioned speech about not giving in to radicals and declaring that the match will take place as scheduled.

Clarke goes, of course, together with their entire friend group. It was out of the question that they wouldn’t show up to cheer on Octavia, Jasper and Monroe, but Clarke does not take the equalist threat lightly. She doesn’t know if she’s relieved to see police practically everywhere around and inside the arena, though. They might just make it worse.

Monty, Wells, Maya and Clarke find their seats while Raven and Finn go and get them all some snacks. Clarke looks anxiously around the arena, as if she’d be able to spot it if anything was amiss.

She pushes back her unease as soon as the game starts, to try and get some level of enjoyment out of it. She’s starting to really get a grasp of the rules, so she boos whenever the opposing team makes an illegal move and cheers when things go well for her friends. They’re the first to lose a player when the opposing team’s water- and firebender gang up on Jasper, but Octavia and Monroe still manage to conquer a zone and win the round.

Jasper returns for round two and the game continues. Clarke is beginning to understand what her friends meant with this creative fighting style the Dogbats are known for. Some of the techniques and strategies that they use are only allowed because nobody thought to write any restrictions about them in the rules. The Dogbats win the second round, to loud booing from Clarke and her friends.

Clarke realizes that she’d almost forgotten about the equalist threat. The police officers are all still in position, but many of them must have decided that the threats were nothing more than a bluff, because they’re focused on the match instead of scanning the spectator zone for suspicious behavior.

Clarke looks back down to where the match is taking place only when she hears Wells and Raven scream in her ears as the Badgerfrogs manage to advance a zone. The Dogbats’ waterbender, a guy called Wick, is soon pushed back into the third zone, but then Monroe is hit with an earth disk and she tumbles into Octavia. Their opponents waste no time making good use of this turn of events and sending them both back to their half of the arena.

Jasper holds up well, though, just long enough for them to push the firebender, Harper, over the edge of the ring. But then Jasper is hit with a powerful jet of water and his feet cross the zone line.

The remaining Dogbats advance, but not for long. Wick is sent back toward the edge of the ring by Octavia, nearly falling off before he manages to climb back up, just in time to narrowly avoid two earth disks. Miller, the Dogbats’ earthbender, stubbornly maintains his position, but Wick soon finds himself dangling over the edge of the ring again. This time, a well-aimed fire blast from Octavia is enough to prevent him from climbing back up.

On his own now, Miller’s only hope is to eliminate at least two of his opponents or push all three of them back a zone before the timer runs out. He tries, and Clarke has to commend him for managing to push Monroe back to the last zone before he gets hit with an impressive combo and flies across the ring, all the way over the edge. He lands in the water and a bomb goes off.

A literal one.


	3. BOOK 3 - BLOOD

The glass ceiling shatters, chunks of the brick wall are blasted into the audience and Clarke can’t hear anything but screaming. She feels the overwhelming power of the avatar state rush through her very being like red-hot iron, and she taps into that raw spirit power to stop rocks from crushing spectators, airbend people away when parts of the floor start to crumble and stop one of the Arena’s falling towers from landing on top of people trying to flee by the nearby exit.

It’s not enough.

It’s complete and utter chaos, and everything happens so fast that even the avatar state can’t cope with it all. She sees more people die than she manages to get to safety, and she doesn’t know how long she lasts, but people are still desperately trying to make their way out of the arena when the exhaustion grows too overpowering for her to handle the avatar state any longer.

Clarke collapses just outside the remains of the building, manages to get back on her feet through will-power alone and goes back inside. She’s helped another two people when she hears Raven’s faint voice. Clarke has to get two other earthbenders to help her lift the amount of rocks she’s buried under. One of her legs is badly injured, but her quick reflexes and excellent earthbending skills are the only reason she’s even still alive.

Clarke vaguely remembers going back in after Raven’s been brought to the paramedics, but at some point she blacks out.

The damage is colossal, the loss of life catastrophic. Hundreds of injured are sent off to various hospitals, and many more leave the pro-bending arena in body bags. Octavia and Monroe make it out relatively unscathed, but Maya has a concussion and a broken wrist, Wells suffers from serious head trauma and Raven might never regain full sensation in her left leg.

Monty, Jasper, and Finn are never even found. None of the opposing team’s players are either.

 

Clarke spends the next few days alternating between different hospital rooms, trying to push away her anger and grief by keeping busy in any way she can. But she feels it building. On the fourth day, when the doctors tell Raven the numbness in her leg is unlikely to ever go away, and Wells still hasn’t woken up, the rage overpowers her and she makes a rash decision.

She makes it to the building Monty’s tracker had located her at on the night she talked with Heda and wastes no time in knocking out the guard by the door. She has to take down seventeen people to get to her and only barely manages not to make her blows lethal.

She blasts the door open and Heda turns to look at the source of the commotion. She’s not wearing her mask or cape, and she seems momentarily shocked by the sight before her, which gives Clarke a small sense of satisfaction.

Two men and a woman are in the room with her and they all attack at once, but Clarke’s always found that anger makes her more alert and quick to react, and she takes them all out with relative ease.

Now Heda looks almost uncomfortable, and that is definitely satisfying.

“How could you do this?” she yells, producing fire daggers from her fists. “There were innocent people in there! Children!” It’s so easy to let her anger feed the flames. She remembers her firebending instructor’s warnings about letting anger control you, but she doesn’t give a single fuck about that right now.

“You say you want to bring down the government, but then you go and blow up a building full of people who have nothing to do with that!”

“Clarke,” Heda says, and she doesn’t know if it’s in fear or warning, “We had nothing to do with the attack on the pro-bending arena.”

“Bullshit,” Clarke spits and takes another step closer. “What did you call it again? ‘Dire consequences’? Well, you got what you wanted. I saw people die in there! Some of my friends are still missing!”

“It wasn’t us,” Heda says slowly, and the calmness in her voice is entirely infuriating. “We were going to stop the award ceremony, stun the players and attack the police officers, just enough to scare the audience out and send a message. But then the explosion happened. We did not do this, Clarke.”

“Stop lying,” Clarke hisses, and finally steps in close enough to wrap her hand around Heda’s throat. She thinks Heda lets her, but not a moment later there’s a dagger against her own throat and she almost smiles. Finally a reaction she can work with.

“You did this,” she urges, willing it to be true so she can get whatever satisfaction there is to be had from enacting her revenge. She could probably bend the air right out of her lungs if she wanted to. Maybe even before Heda would manage to slit her throat.

“I lost people in there too, Clarke,” she only says, and this time her voice does betray her emotion. “Can you not see what they’re doing?” she continues, “We threatened the city with an attack, so they made sure it got one. We are being set up, so they can justify even harsher measures against us.”

“No,” Clarke says, but her grip on Heda’s throat loosens. It has to have been them. It just has to. Monty, Jasper, Finn. They can’t have... She doesn’t like President Wallace, but there is no way he would have sanctioned something like this.

Clarke lets go of Heda’s throat. The knife is dropped a few seconds after. Clarke wants to say sorry, but she can’t force the words out. A significant part of her is still in denial, and saying that word will make it real. She can’t do that yet.

So she runs.

 

The denial doesn’t last long. President Wallace’s son makes a statement later that same day to announce the sad news that his father has fallen ill and is therefore no longer fit to perform the duties he was elected for, particularly in this stressful time of unrest. Cage has therefore accepted to replace his father in that role until stability returns to the city and new elections can be held. Clarke watches him speak, and decides in that moment that she trusts him even less than his father.

The next few days, several laws are passed in quick succession. A curfew is established for all non-benders, and any association with the equalists is punishable by a prison sentence, which includes sheltering known equalists or aiding them in any way. A task force is established to ensure the proper enactment of these new laws.

 

Maya comes to her a week later, a mix of anxiety and hopeful excitement. They haven’t had a chance to interact much outside of airbending training, but now she drags Clarke out of bed and into the chilly morning air, and tells her she might have found Jasper, Monty and Finn.

Clarke’s eyes widen and she’s instantly awake. She makes Maya explain every last detail to her.

Her father works at City Hall. He’s a waterbender, but his late wife was a non-bender, and until recently, so was Maya, so he’s been aware of the unequal treatment of non-benders for as long as Maya can remember. So when Cage Wallace took over for his father and all those anti-equalist laws were passed, he did some digging. He discovered that there’s people who come in every day at the same times and take the stairs down to the basement. It’s supposed to only be files and supplies down here, but they never come back up until City Hall is about to close. It took him a while to find it, but there is a secret door that leads down into some kind of hospital, or maybe a lab. There are locked rooms full of people, and a few rooms with medical equipment. He suspects they’re keeping people locked up and doing some kind of experiments on them.

Clarke has Maya take her to him as soon as he gets home from work that same evening.

“Can you get me in there?” she asks him.

He explains that it’s much too dangerous. There is surveillance everywhere and no place to hide. The only reason he got in and back out was because he figured out the schedules and only stayed in the restricted area for half a minute or so. Just enough to see what was on the other side and get back.

“So give me the schedules, then,” says Clarke resolutely. Vincent exchanges a glance with his daughter, who shrugs. “She’s going to do it anyway.”

 

Clarke doesn’t waste any time. She makes it to City Hall just before it closes, and creates a distraction so she can slip into the basement, where she hides behind a stack of cardboard boxes. Even after providing her with the guard schedules, Vincent had tried to urge her to think this through before charging in there alone. He was going to contact the press, find someone who could expose all of this to the world, but Clarke knows she doesn’t have time for that. The spirits only know what they’re up to in there, and how long the people they’re keeping prisoner are kept alive. If they tell the press, all they’ll find will be an empty facility, made to look like it’s been abandoned for ages, and if the government lacks the level of morality required to not blow up one of the city’s most recognizable buildings with a good portion of the population inside, they certainly won’t have any reservations about killing every single person in this prison laboratory to cover their tracks.

Clarke waits until it’s been at least ten minutes since the last people passed by her and took the stairs back up to the lobby. Then she sneaks over to the other end of the room, where, per Vincent’s instructions, she finds the large, metal door hidden behind a bookcase.

The key card Vincent provided her with still works. There’s nobody by the door, just like the schedule says, and Clarke hopes everyone has left for the day. She enters quietly and inspects her surroundings. A long, white hallway with a multitude of doors on her right, and only two that she can see on the left.

She tries the first door on her right. It’s locked, of course, and Clarke kneels down to feel the metal of the lock. Her metalbending isn’t great (it’s not a required skill for the avatar, after all, so Clarke has only ever practiced twice with Raven, and it’s possible she was a bit drunk the first time), but maybe she can still get this door open.

She’s focusing on finding the grains of earth inside the metal, just like Raven told her to, when a deeply uncomfortable feeling floods over her. It’s unlike anything she’s ever felt before. Every muscle in her body seems to tense up, and she rises from her position despite not moving her body of her own volition. It’s almost like her bones have been glued together. She finds it hard to even breathe right.

“My my,” someone says. Clarke can’t stop her body from whirling around like some kind of human marionette, and she comes to face a woman wearing a big smile. Her lab coat labels her _Doctor Tsing_. “The avatar,” she says grandly. “Isn’t this a treat.”

Despite her concentrated efforts, Clarke can’t stop the woman from having her walk herself down the hall and into one of the rooms on the left. She lies down on an examination table and the doctor ties her arms and legs to it.

“You,” the doctor says, that sickly sweet smile still plastered on her lips, “have come just at the right time.”

She draws Clarke’s blood and takes various other samples, which she labels slowly and seemingly without a care in the world, as Clarke still struggles to be released from this excruciating hold the doctor has on her. She can’t even move a single finger without the doctor letting her.

“Why are you doing this?” she manages to say through gritted teeth, and the woman smiles back at her.

“For the good of the world, my dear.”

 

Once doctor Tsing is done with her, Clarke gets put in one of the rooms on the opposite end of the hallway. Only then does she finally feel the strange hold release her and she falls to the ground, the strain on her muscles finally hitting her.

“Clarke?” She hears a familiar voice ask with worry.

“Monty?” Clarke calls, relief flooding over her at the sight of her friend. He crouches down and hugs her, and despite the miserable circumstances, Clarke can only be immensely relieved. Monty looks pale and tired, but at least he’s alive. “Where are the others? Have you seen them?”

He shakes his head. “I hear them sometimes, though. They’re probably going through the same thing.”

“Which is?” Clarke asks slowly.

“I think they’re trying to give people bending,” Monty tells her. They take him out of the room every couple of days, and usually they just draw blood, but sometimes they inject him with things that make him nauseous and ask him to bend water in a cup.

“It’s nothing compared to what they’re doing to the non-benders, though,” he says sorrowfully, looking toward the back of the room.

It’s only now that Clarke notices another presence in the dark room, curled up in a bed pushed against the opposite wall.

“Anya?” Clarke rushes to her side. She has fading burn marks on her jaw and neck and Clarke swallows before examining her further. She’s not a healer, but her mother taught her some of the easy stuff before she discovered she was the avatar.

Anya is pale and feverish, a bit delirious, and she keeps clutching her stomach. Clarke knows something that might alleviate some of the pain, as well as help with the burn marks, but there’s no water in the room to work with. She has to settle on watching over her as she writhes in pain, talking with Monty in hushed voices about everything that’s happened to them both since the pro-bending championship.

Eventually, they hear a noise from outside, and Monty confirms that it’s likely to be the doctor leaving.

Clarke rushes to the door, touching the metal to feel the lock. Only Monty tells her it’s platinum, which is too pure for metalbending. He explains that there was a metalbender in there with them when he arrived, and she never managed to even budge the door.

Clarke tries anyway. Then she attempts firebending the hinges, which she gives up when her fingers go numb and her feet start to feel like blocks of ice. At some point she punches the wall, but all that does is make her bleed.

That gives her an idea.

She spits on the hinges, gets Monty to do the same. Then she waterbends it into solid form and begins sawing away at the door.

Clarke’s absolutely exhausted by the time the first one breaks, but the clang as the door drops down enough to hit the ground is enough to keep her going and do the same to the other hinges.

 

They blast the door all the way into the hallway wall. It falls to the floor with a great noise and Clarke dearly hopes there are no guards left.

She grabs a softly protesting Anya and they run out the door.

“We have to get the others out, she tells Monty, making her way to the next door as fast as she can.

“I’ll go look for keys,” Monty says, but he skids to a halt with an “oh, shit” and has to airbend himself out of the way of a lightning strike produced by a guard in full protective gear.

“Clarke there’s no time we have to go,” he shouts in one breath, and makes a dash for the far end of the hall, where the door behind the bookcase awaits. Only he’s yanked back by the collar of his shirt and slammed into the ground, hard.

It knocks the air out of his lungs and he narrowly avoids getting hit by another lighting strike before propelling himself off the ground, only to be attacked by another man. There’s more of them rounding the corner of a room farther down the hall. Many more.

“You have to go, Clarke!” Monty shouts, but she refuses to hear him. “I am not leaving you here,” she shouts back at him, but he’s electrocuted by a stream of electricity and slammed into a wall.

No. This can’t be happening.

“Go,” he screams again, raw and urgent as his hands are tied behind his back while he fights to stay conscious. “Go, I’ll be fine!”

Clarke takes one last look at him, hoping she can convey in this last second that she will come back for him, before turning and running for the door.

She uses every bit of energy she has left to create a fire vortex and send it straight for the lone man in her way. She pushes him, screaming and burning, out of her way and kicks fire at her nearest pursuer. Carrying Anya’s slowing her down, but she refuses to leave anyone else behind. She airbends herself up the stairs and crashes through the front door.

Every nerve ending in her body is screaming at her to find the nearest flat surface and take a two-day-long nap, but she’s far from done.

She runs until her lungs sting, taking many steep turns into narrow streets to try and shake off any potential pursuers. She walks the rest of the distance, carrying Anya all the way back to the building she confronted Heda at. She’d take Anya to her own house, but there’s no way she can be left alone in her current state. She needs medical care, but Clarke can’t trust hospitals or doctors right now.

If only her mother was here.

 

It’s the same man at the door as last time, and he only lets her into the equalist headquarters when he sees Anya’s face, all sunken and sickly. He directs her to a room with medical supplies and tells someone to get Heda, who arrives not a minute later.

“Anya,” she breathes, full of shock and relief.

She thanks Clarke sincerely as soon as she’s told who brought her in.

“We need to talk,” Clarke replies. Heda looks back to Anya, but their healers are working on her, and she must realize there’s nothing she can do for her right now, so she nods at Clarke.

They go into a room that looks more like living quarters than any of the other rooms in the building that Clarke has seen. She explains everything that happened to her since their last, unfortunate meeting. Her tired mind makes it difficult to remember all the details, but Heda gets the gist of it.

“We need to do something,” Clarke says. “Maybe making it public is the way to go after all,” she muses, mostly to herself. “But play it smart and, and, raid them or something before they get a chance to kill everyone and get rid of the evidence.”

“And what do you think they’ll do?” Heda asks skeptically, but not unkindly. “They are the government, they are the police, the justice department, everything. They’ll just kill us and have the media spin it in their favor. I’ve seen it before.” She shakes her head. “No, we have to do this ourselves.”

Clarke rubs her forehead. “Fine. But we better do it quick.”

They talk over their options for a few more minutes, until Heda notices Clarke is too far gone to string together logical thoughts into coherent sentences. She tells her she can sleep on the couch if she wants. Clarke starts to protest, saying that she really needs to get back to Air Temple Island so everyone knows she’s alive, but it comes out a slurred mumble, so, fine, she’ll take the couch. It’s moderately comfortable and Heda even manages to procure her a blanket. Any thoughts of doubt about Heda’s intentions and trustworthiness are far from her mind as she settles in and let sleep overtake her.

It’s just before noon when she wakes up and if she’s to believe the newspaper on the table, she’s a wanted person now, suspected of having been involved with the equalists all along. It makes absolutely no sense, but Clarke knows people will believe just about anything when they’re scared.

One of the equalists, a grumpy woman Clarke has met before, tells her Heda has already left the building, so Clarke does the same and makes her way back to Air Temple Island, where she asks to speak to them all.

Over the next day, Clarke contacts every single person she knows and trusts. Octavia and Monroe, especially, are all too ready to get their friends back, and Raven is equally eager to help. Maya and her father say they’ll do anything they can, and even Kane believes her and offers his support. The White Lotus bring in more people from all over the world, among whom Bellamy.

Every single airbender and air acolyte agrees to assist with their plan as well. Almost losing his son changed something in Thelonious, and he’s eager to see the culprits of the bombing brought to justice. He lets them use Air Temple Island as a headquarters, and even lends the equalists some airbender outfits. They move people in and out only during the night, always accompanying non-benders with at least one or two benders, so they can trick potential police officers performing curfew inspections.

 

Clarke wants to go back to City Hall as soon as possible, but everyone tells her it’s better to go in with a plan than to hope that her bending and fighting skills will be enough. City Hall may be their first priority now, but they are talking about bringing down a government, after all.

Clarke and Heda spend several long days and sleepless nights together, hunched over maps and building plans, discussing combat strategies and battle plans with the people they trust most.

In a show of real trust, Heda shares with her information on all the resources and plans she had for the equalist movement, and suddenly Clarke is not so unhappy that they came so very prepared for battle. Heda estimates that just under two thousand people have now received some form of chi-blocking training, and they have 726 electricity gloves, 1168 gas masks and 14 mecha suits at their disposal.

It’s during the second of those long nights, after everyone else has left and it’s just the two of them and a stack of papers in the women’s dormitory on Air Temple Island, that Clarke finds out how deep Heda’s trust runs when she tells her that her real name is Lexa.

The equalists gather a good 1200 fighters. The White Lotus presence in Republic City accounts for about 100 more, and then there’s the other volunteers they managed to gather. They don’t know if it’ll be enough, but it’s the only chance they’ve got.

Raven, who’s currently working from a wheelchair she designed and built herself, and which she controls with metalbending, tells them she can improve the electricity gloves, given enough time. Clarke tells her time is not something they have, but she should start anyway and see what she manages to get done before the final assault.

 

They’re in another one of those late strategy meetings in the equalist building, and Clarke is blinking away the sleep that keeps settling in her eyelids. It’s way past midnight, and they’ve been at it since the morning, but they still haven’t figured out a way to get past the doctor’s body-controlling ability, which Clarke has been told is an illegal subform of waterbending. Anya is their biggest help in figuring out everything that goes on behind that big, metal door. She tells them doctor Tsing can control at least four people at a time, but that’s the most she’s ever seen at once, so they don’t know how far this ability of hers stretches.

“Go home, Clarke,” Lexa tells her kindly when Clarke rubs her eyes for at least the tenth time. “We can pick this up tomorrow morning.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Clarke tries to assure her, “let’s just go over this one more time, I’m sure we can figure something out.”

“Clarke, I’m tired,” Lexa says, though she shows no sign of it.

“You’ve had like 14 coffees today and I haven’t even seen you yawn once,” Clarke says with a pointed look.

“Well, I’m still tired,” Lexa responds, crossing her arms and giving her the Heda look. “Go home,” she says again, “We’ll both think more clearly in the morning.”

Clarke sighs deeply, so as to show that she does not take this defeat willingly. “If you’re tired, then.”

Lexa almost smiles. She rolls up some of the maps and walks her to the balcony.

“Tomorrow at nine?” she asks, and Clarke nods, picking up her glider from where it rests against the window.

“Good night, then.”

“Good night, Clarke.”

She’s just opened the window, letting in the chilly night air, when Lexa grabs her wrist lightly. Clarke looks back up at her and almost takes a step back out of surprise when Lexa leans in and tentatively brushes her lips against her own. Noticing her surprise and no doubt taking it for unwillingness, Lexa starts to pull back, an apology already forming on her tongue, when Clarke pulls her back into her.

The kiss is slow and soft, and Clarke doesn’t know if that’s because they’re both exhausted, but she enjoys it. Lexa seems hyper-sensitive to every movement she makes and doesn’t take more than Clarke is able to give right now. Even when she eventually breaks away and tells her she really needs to get going before she can’t anymore, Lexa’s face flashes disappointment for only a brief moment before she smiles, a rare and genuine thing.

 

Clarke wakes up alone and almost regrets it. But she reminds herself that they do have a battle to win, and she has no room in her brain right now for these kinds of thoughts, not when she’s already feeling overwhelmed by everything coming her way. She can figure this out later, when her friends are safe and Lexa’s people have nothing left to fear from the likes of Cage Wallace.

It’s taking place in the early hours of the next day. Clarke finally convinces the others that they can’t keep waiting indefinitely, because the longer they do, the slimmer the chance becomes of finding their friends alive. They have the manpower to take down this building, bloodbender or not, and all the inside information they could hope to get. It’s now or never.

It’s a three-pronged attack. Small groups are sent to the homes of some of Republic City’s police officers, in an attempt to subdue and capture them before they can be called to defend City Hall. They can’t spare the manpower to take down the entire Republic City police force, so they target the highest ranking officers, those most vocal about their disdain for the equalist movement, and all members of Cage’s task force. At the same time, a large-scale attack is waged on the police headquarters, to incapacitate the night shift and anticipate the arrival of the morning crew.

Another large part of their army is sent to take over City Hall and free the prisoners in the underground lab. Clarke wanted to be with them, for her friends, but it’s decided that she’s needed for the last part of their mission.

So she finds herself in a truck with Monroe, the father of Nathan Miller, one of Lexa’s associates called Lincoln, and two more people Clarke doesn’t really know. They’re a team of highly skilled fighters, and it seems almost absurd to Clarke that they would be sent to capture the non-bender son of Dante Wallace, who lacks any known combat training.

He has plenty of competent guards, though. Still, they clear every room in the mansion and take them all down without suffering any losses. Cage’s bedroom is the last room they check. He’s got a platinum door, but apparently forgot to replace his stone walls with the same material. Clarke and Monroe break through it in a matter of seconds.

The room is empty.

They rush to City Hall. By the time they get there, they’ve long discovered that something has gone incredibly wrong. The aircraft hovering over City Hall is visible from great distance, and when they finally get there, they find the entire main square filled with mecha tanks, motorcycles, trucks, and people engaged in combat – police officers, equalists and many others who have chosen a side. Clarke doesn’t suspect that many of the officers they targeted in their homes were actually captured.

She takes her glider right to the middle of it. She finds Octavia, who’s counting out loud the number of people she defeats. There’s blood all over her face, and Clarke doesn’t know if any of it’s hers, but she seems to be rather enjoying herself, so Clarke assumes she’s fine.

She’s fighting alongside Raven, who has traded in the wheelchair for a metal leg brace, and seems to be playing the counting game as well. “37,” she shouts victoriously as she hits a police officer in the eye with his own metal rods and takes him out with a punch to the nose.

“35,” Octavia counts through gritted teeth when she takes down another opponent with her fire whip not a moment later.

Then they hear a familiar voice and suddenly Bellamy’s there.

“O,” he says and grabs his sister. “We’re taking down the airship!”

They propel themselves into the air with their firebending and Clarke looks up to see four other firebenders do the same.

“Oh fuck you,” Raven exclaims, when their combined efforts make the aircraft’s cockpit explode.

“That one doesn’t count,” she turns to Clarke seriously, but Clarke isn’t listening.

“Raven,” she says instead, panic seeping through to her voice as the nose of the airship tips downward, and slowly starts to fall out of the air. “Now would be the time to show me just how good of a metalbender you are.”

Octavia returns about two seconds later, relaying the same message.

“Get on,” she instructs, and after a moment of confusion, Raven climbs on her back and they lift off to save the city from being crushed by the gigantic chunk of metal that is the police airship.

Clarke continues her fight on the ground, freezing as many police officers to the ground as her water supply allows. Then she switches to fire- and airbending until, finally, she makes it to the front doors of City Hall and joins Lexa and her people. They’ve only just made it into the building, and are still fighting their way to the basement in a flurry of bending, lightning rods and electricity gloves.

They use a bomb to blast open the platinum door to the secret lab. More officers await them behind it.

It takes eighteen people just to take down Doctor Tsing, but eventually a firebender slips past her while she’s occupied with making the others fight each other, and he burns her until her screams fade out and she’s gone. Clarke swallows at the sight of her, but can’t get herself to feel sorry for the woman. Not after what she did to her friends.

They release everyone from their cells and Clarke can hardly contain her relief at finding all her friends. They’re weak and sick, but alive, and that’s all that counts.

They find Cage last, hiding away like the coward he is. He tries to negotiate, but he has nothing to bargain with. Lexa electrocutes him with her equalist glove and has some of her people tie him up.

They have to fight their way back out again, as more police officers have come to the defense of the underground lab, but when they finally make it back out, they find that the fight is mostly over.

They’ve won. The city is an absolute mess, but they’ve won.

 

The next few days and weeks are chaos. Several buildings around City Hall are heavily damaged and the airship has to be cleared from where Raven landed it in Yue Bay. The necessary structural changes are made, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow for some, particularly those who lose power that they’ve enjoyed for most of their lives.

Massive firings happen at the police force, and non-benders are allowed to sign up for training within a matter of days. The curfew is lifted and the task force disbanded, and it takes a month or two for an anti-discrimination bill to be drafted. The newly elected parliament passes it with a large majority.

Still, not everything runs smoothly. Clarke is surprised by the relative ease in changing the legal and bureaucratic side of things, but opinions are more insidious and harder to change, especially for people who have spent their entire lives being told that their bending uniquely qualifies them for functions and opportunities non-benders are not able or allowed to have access to.

It’s thanks to people like Thelonious and Marcus, trusted and valuable members of the United Republic’s political landscape, that they manage to gather enough public support not to turn the majority of the city’s population against the change in regime. The horrors of the Wallaces are publicized and the assisting role that the equalists played in their capture is emphasized.

The remaining members of the metalbending police force are particularly slow to accept the new non-bender presence in their midst, but the chi-blocking that many of the new recruits know is enough to instill an adequate measure of fear and respect in the benders, and keep them from voicing their displeasure all too loudly.

Slowly, real change happens.

 

Clarke continues her airbending training, dividing most of her time between Air Temple Island, her friends’ usual hangouts, and Lexa’s apartment. The White Lotus has finally learned to loosen up a little, and allows her to live her own life – for the most part. They compromise on keeping just two guards stationed on the island and accompanying her to official events. Clarke even gets them to release her father, and he and her mother eventually come for a visit in Republic City.

She introduces Lexa to them over dinner one night, and Clarke can’t imagine having ever been more anxious in her life. Somehow, though, her being a bundle of nerves doesn’t stop them from having a surprisingly fun evening. Lexa is polite as always, and even her mother is on her best behavior.

Abby and Jake tell their daughter they’re both very proud of her and everything she’s accomplished, and Clarke reaches for Lexa’s hand under the table while she struggles not to cry.

 

The hot topic for the months to come is the debate on the fate of Dr. Tsing’s work, when word gets out that she actually succeeded. She gave waterbending to Monty and four non-benders, and was going to do the same to Cage Wallace when the attack on City Hall thwarted that plan.

The media won’t stop trying to get Clarke’s opinion on the matter, being the avatar and all, but she stays out of it, doesn’t give them a single word that they can twist in their newspapers and radio broadcasts. She has her airbending training to finish, she tells them, the excuse so familiar it comes almost automatically now. Mostly, though, she’s just exhausted.

She does ask some of her friends’ thoughts on the matter. Opinions are divided, just like they are all throughout the city. Some argue that it’s unnatural, that Tsing tampered too much with spirit vines for this to be something that they should allow to continue. The natural balance of the world was supposed to be restored when Clarke opened the spirit portals all those months ago, and all the world got was new airbenders. That should be enough of a sign that creating more waterbenders is not the way it’s supposed to be.

Others have a more positive approach to the whole thing. There are some non-benders, of course, who view it as a way to even out the playing field, and a fair number of benders who would jump at the chance to be able to control multiple elements. Many in the southern water tribe seem eager enough at the prospect of new waterbenders, because their nation still has not returned to its former glory from before the Hundred Year War, and some also wonder if Tsing’s research could be continued in an attempt to further expand the air nation.

Monty is monitored closely for months, as are the other four new waterbenders, but nothing seems out of the ordinary with him. Physically, he’s entirely healthy, and his new abilities do not appear to come with any side-effects. A waterbending tutor is assigned to teach him and the other four, and he seems happy enough with his new abilities, even if he’s a bit overwhelmed by all the media attention. Jasper is absolutely delighted that his best friend is now a waterbender like him, and promises to teach him everything he knows.

Lexa’s approach to the whole thing is hard to decipher. As the former leader of the equalists, she is staunchly and vocally opposed to the idea of using Tsing’s serum, but eventually, when it’s just her and Clarke in the confines of her small apartment, she’s willing to admit that it’s still an incredibly tempting thought. As a kid, she would dream about controlling the elements, and she talks sadly about how, after all these years, she still can’t shake the idea that she might have been able to save her parents and her lover if she’d just been born a bender.

She maintains that it’s not worth it in the end, though. It wouldn’t solve anything. Not really.

“Besides,” she says, squeezing Clarke’s hand tighter before her serious expression shifts into something lighter, “I’m kind of dating the avatar now. That’s enough bending in my life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the support, and free to hmu on [tumblr](http://www.soofdope.tumblr.com).


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